Tax Credit Advisor Article Archives

It will take some time to fully digest the results from this year’s election, but I wanted to share some initial thoughts on what this may mean for our industry.

You read it right. That’s $7,000,000,000. Seven Billion. It’s the value of the New Markets Tax Credits allocated by the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund to 120 Community Development Entities in 36 states to develop businesses and improve lives in underserved communities.

In 2010, Woodlawn, a neighborhood on Chicago’s lakeshore about eight miles south of the downtown Loop and just south of the much more-expensive Hyde Park neighborhood, was blighted by vacant lots and abandoned buildings. It had been hit especially hard by the housing crash. The foreclosure rate in the neighborhood was well-above the average for the city, or even the South Side.

A new kind of senior is on campus. As described by Andrew Carle, an assistant professor at George Mason University, in northern Virginia, and founder of the nation’s first Master of Science in Senior Housing Administration (MSHA) Program, this new senior—age 55 all the way up to anything—lives on or near campus; goes to class, theater performances and ballgames; wears school sweatshirts, and engages in activities like mentoring undergraduates. It is, Carle says, “the future of senior living.”

Based in El Paso, Texas, Hunt Companies is one of the oldest and largest real estate companies in America, with over 6,000 employees and $30 billion in assets. Hunt is primarily known for being the largest military housing owner in the country.

NIMBY – “Not In My Back Yard” – has been a real estate rallying cry for generations – whether it replied to integration, ethnicity, unwanted businesses, addiction treatment centers or even architectural diversity. Affordable housing agencies and developers have borne the brunt of citizens’ action committees and organized, often ugly protests.

In early October, the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Terwilliger Center for Housing and the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders (NAAHL) co-hosted a day-long symposium/roundtable on what we decided by the end of the day just might be an emerging asset class whose preservation is integral to the success of America’s cities and the urban economy.

Like many complex industries, companies in affordable housing development encompass many functions and many moving parts. This suggests a great diversity of career opportunities.

Housing is generally considered affordable if total housing costs do not exceed 30 percent of an individual’s gross income. This is really more of a programmatic definition than a practical one; it is a helpful measure for setting subsidized rents and utility allowances for low-income families that are lucky enough to live in LIHTC or Section 8 housing.

By the time you read this, we will have elected a new President.

Each year since 2004, NH&RA has bestowed its Affordable Housing Vision Award to affordable housing and community development leaders who have made valuable contributions to the field and demonstrated years of leadership, commitment and imagination.

Larry Curtis aspired to be a successful businessman from the time he was 10 years old. Walking through a large shopping mall, Curtis told his parents that “one day, I am going to own this place.”